Steamboating on the Missouri River (Article begins on page 2 below.) This article is copyrighted by History Nebraska (formerly the Nebraska State Historical Society). You may download it for your personal use. For permission to re-use materials, or for photo ordering information, see: https://history.nebraska.gov/publications/re-use-nshs-materials Learn more about Nebraska History (and search articles) here: https://history.nebraska.gov/publications/nebraska-history-magazine History Nebraska members receive four issues of Nebraska History annually: https://history.nebraska.gov/get-involved/membership Full Citation: William J Petersen, “Steamboating on the Missouri River,” Nebraska History 35 (1954): 255-275 Article Summary: Steamboating on the Missouri is one of the most colorful stories in the development of the Trans-Mississippi West. The steamboat deserves equal rank with the covered wagon as a symbol of the westward movement. Cataloging Information: Names: Jacques Marquette, Louis Joliet, Henry Atkinson, Manuel Lisa, John Todd, Phil E Chappell, Charles Augustus Murray Keywords: Lewis and Clark expedition, Forty Niners, Pike’s Peakers, Mormons Photographs / Images: a wreck on the Missouri, the Jennie Brown STEAMBOATING ON THE MISSOURI RIVER BY WILLIAM J. PETERSEN HE history of the Missouri River,! like that of the TUpper Mississippi, goes back to the advent of Joliet and Marquette in 1673. It was early in July that these ven­ turesome Frenchmen first saw the Missouri. As they were paddling quietly down the Mississippi below Piasa Rock [Alton, Illinois], Joliet and Marquette suddenly heard the "noise of a rapid" which proved to be the Missouri River. "I have seen nothing more dreadful," Marquette wrote in his journal, as he noted the "accumulation of large and entire trees, branches, and floating islands" issuing from the mouth of the Missouri with "such impetuosity" that the explorers could not "risk passing through it" without great danger. According to Marquette the "agitation" of lThe following accounts of Missouri River steamboating should prove useful: Hiram M. Chittenden, History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River (New York, 1903); Joseph M. Hanson, The Conquest of the Missouri (Chicago, 1910); Stanley Vestal, The Missouri (New York, 1945); William L. Heckman, Steamboating Sixty-five Years on Missouri's Rivers (Kansas City, 1950); Phil E. Chappell, "A History of the Missouri River" and "Missouri River Steamboats"; Kansas Historical Collections, IX, 237-316; Several authors, "The Missouri River," Nebraska History Magazine, VIII, No. 1, 1-64; W. J. McDonald "The Missouri River and Its Victims," Missouri Historical Review, XXI, 215-242, 455-480, 581-607; William J. Petersen, "The Log of the Henry Shreve to Fort Benton in 1869," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXXI, 537- 578; Iowa-The Rivers of Her Valleys (Iowa City, 1941) pp. 206- 228; John G. Neihardt, The River and I (New York, 1927). Dr. William J. Petersen is superintendent of the State istorical Society of Iowa. This paper was presented at e afternoon session of the 76th annual meeting of the ebraska State Historical Society, Lincoln, 25 September 54. [255] 256 NEBRASKA HISTORY the two streams at their confluence made the water "very muddy" so that it "could not become clear." The Indians were able to furnish Joliet and Marquette with only fragmentary information about the Pekitanoui River, as the Missouri was called by them because of its muddy water. "Pekitanoui," Marquette recorded, "is a river of Considerable size, coming from the Northwest, from a great Distance; and it discharges into the Missis­ sippi. There are many Villages of savages along this river."2 During the next 130 years relatively little was learned about the mighty Missouri. True, such men as La Salle, Father Zenobius Membre, and Father Gabriel Marest re­ ferred briefly to the Missouri in their writings, and carto­ graphers like William Delisle endeavored to delineate its lower course. But the upper reaches of the Missouri still lay shrouded in mystery when Jefferson bought Louisiana from Napoleon in 1803.3 The Lewis and Clark expedition added more informa­ tion to our knowledge of the Missouri than did all the writers and cartographers from Joliet and Marquette down to the Louisiana Purchase. Although a few venturesome fur traders had ascended the Missouri even before St. Louis was founded in 1764, it was the Lewis and Clark expedition that greatly expanded the traffic in furs and pelts.4 The names of Manuel Lisa, Wilson P. Hunt, John C. Luttig, Joseph Robidoux, Alexander Harvey, John Col­ ter, Pierre Charles Cabanne, and Hugh Glass, recall those "laughers at time and space" who plunged so bravely into the Missouri River fur trade.5 2Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations, LIX, 139-143. 3William J. Petersen, Iowcv-The Rivers of Her Valleys (Iowa City, 1941), pp. 208-210. 4Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (New York, 1904). An excellent single volume prepared for the 150th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedi­ tion is Bernard De Voto, ed., The Journals of Lewis and Clark (Boston, 1953). See also William J. Petersen's "The Lewis and Clark Expedition," The Palimpsest, XXXV, 357-404. 5Hiram M. Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West (New York, 1902); George F. Robeson, "The Fur Trade," The Palimpsest, VI, 1-41; Mari Sandoz, The Buffalo Hunters (New York, 1954). STEAMBOATING ON THE MISSOURI RIVER 257 Prior to the advent of the steamboat, the keelboat and the pirogue were the only vessels capable of carrying a cargo up the turbid Missouri. Both the Lewis and Clark and the Brigadier General Henry Atkinson expeditions used keelboats to ascend the Missouri, but this mode of trans­ portation proved entirely inadequate to stem the snag­ infested, sandbar-studded, swiftly flowing stream. Even Manuel Lisa's mad race up the Missouri after the Astorian Expedition in 1812, while appropriately called the "Mara­ thon of the Missouri," did little to prove the practicability of keelboats on the tawny Missouri.6 It remained for the steamboat to succeed where all other modes of transporta­ tion had failed. And it was largely through the steamboat that the Nebraska country developed at such a phenomenal rate between 1854 and 1867, when statehood finally was achieved.7 Steamboating on the Missouri is one of the most color­ ful and dynamic stories in the development of the Trans­ Mississippi West. .So great was the contribution of the 6William J. Petersen, "Up the Missouri with Atkinson," The Palimpsest, XII, 315-325. 7Actually the growth of the four Missouri Valley states and Dakota Territory probably surpassed that of the nine western states and territories between 1850 and 1870. Even though many of those recorded on the Pacific Coast arrived by sailing vessel while untold numbers made their way to the Missouri Valley, at first by cove:'ed wagon and later by train, the number that arrived in the Kansas­ Nebrasl~a-Dakota territories by steamboat (particularly between 1854 and 1867) must have been immense. The following figures show the growth of the two a_ eas: Population of Missouri Valley and Western States 1850-1870 Missouri Valley States: 1850 1860 1870 Missouri 682,044 1,182,012 1,721,295 Iowa 192,214 674,913 1,194,020 Kansas 107,206 364,399 Nebraska 28,841 122,993 Dakota Territory 4,837 14,181 Western States: Colorado 34,277 39,864 Wyoming 9,118 Montana 20,595 Nevada 6,857 42,491 Utah 11,380 40,273 86,786 Idaho 14,999 Washington 11,594 23,955 Oregon 13,294 52,465 90,923 California 92,597 379,994 560,247 258 NEBRASKA HISTORY steamboat to Missouri Valley history that it deserves equal rank with the covered wagon as a symbol of the westward movement. A study of seven successive frontier lines from 1800 to 1870 quickly reveals how the American pioneer moved down the Ohio and up the Mississippi and Missouri to the Kansas-Nebraska country. This was accomplished by water craft whose speed and tonnage was greatly in­ creased following the invention of the steamboat. Even the thick water of the Missouri, celebrated as it is in song and story, could not be traversed by covered wagons. Let us consider for a moment the speed of this west­ ward advance. In 1810 the St. Louis-Cairo stretch of the Mississippi was almost linked with the thin belt of settle­ ment filtering down the Ohio to its mouth. By 1820 the frontier of settlement clung precariously to both banks of the Missouri as far as Jefferson City, Boonville, and Old Franklin. By 1830 Glasgow, Waverly, Lexington, and West­ port Landing (now Kansas City) ::..erved as entrepots for the rich argosies brought up by steamboats. Westport, lo­ cated at the junction of the Missouri with the Kansas River, was a famous jumping-off point for the Santa Fe Trail, the fur trade, and the frontier military posts. Between 1830 and 1850 steamboats gradually extended their sway above Kansas City, but settlement was restricted to the Missouri-Iowa side of the Big Muddy. Thus, in 1840, the St. Joseph area had been reached, but the northern tier of Missouri counties still lay beyond the frontier. By 1850 settlers had pushed up the east bank of the Missouri to present-day Council Bluffs. Meanwhile, the land beyond the wide Missouri awaited the extinction of Indian titles and the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854. By 1860 settlers had spilled westward over the plains of Kansas and Nebraska and moved upstream past Sioux City to the Yankton area. s The history of steamboating on the Missouri fits neatly into the story of this constantly moving frontier. Indeed, the story of one cannot be told without bringing SCharles 0.